I have a 1.25 eMac with an 80 gig hard disk running Panther 10.3.5. I want to securely wipe data from it so I used "8 Way Random Write Format" in disk utility. It wrote random data to the hard drive for about 48 hours, until it showed half finished in the progress bar. Then about 24 hours ago the window changed its venue from writing random data to "Creating Partition Map". The progress bar has ceased to move from the halfway point and the the rainbow wheel cursor is still spinning. Is this normal or has disk utility "froze"? If this is typical behavior, then how long does it take to finish the process of wiping the hard drive? Thank you in advance for any assistance.

A single-pass random write generally takes a couple of hours
so theoretically doing this process eight times might take
upwards of a day or more. I have never tried that specifically
so I don't know if it is normal but hopefully by now you have
found the answer yourself anyway.

Good luck!